sss SOOAR CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE. 



SUGAR CULTURH AND MANUFACTURE. 



sso 



these historians. Jacobus de Vitriaco, in 1124, says that in Syria reeds 

 grow that are full of honey; by which he understands a sweet juice 

 which, t>y the pressure of a screw-engine, and concreted by fire, 

 becomes sugar. About the same time William of Tyre speaks of 

 sugar as made in the neighbourhood of Tyre, and sent from theuce to 

 the farthest parts of the world. As early as the time of the emperor 

 Frederick Barbarosaa, sugar was produced in great quantity in Sicily, 

 and used in two states ; either boiled down to the consistence of honey, 

 or boiled further, so as to form a solid body of sugar. About 1306, 

 sugar was made in the countries subject to the Sultan, and also in 

 Cyprus, Rhodes, Amorea, Sicily, and other places belonging to the 

 Christians. The progress made in introducing the sugar-cane, and the 

 process of extracting sugar from it, into the islands of the Mediter- 

 ranean, into Italy, and into Spain, were derived from the Arabs, and 

 were in some degree connected with the increased communication with 

 the East occasioned by the Crusades. It is stated by Venetian histo- 

 rians that in the 12th century Venice could import sugar cheaper from 

 Sicily than from Kgypt. The manufacture of sugar was probably 

 introduced into Spain by the Moors. About 1420 the Portuguese took 

 the sugar-cane from Sicily to Madeira; and probably during the 15th 

 century, it was carried from Spain to the Canaries. From these 

 sources, the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and the art of making sugar, 

 were extended by different nations of Europe to the West Indian 

 islands and the Brazils. Wherever the sugar-cane may hare been 

 indigenous, there is no reason to question the fact that the manu- 

 facture of sugar, derived originally from China and India, was intro- 

 duced into the western world by the Spanish and Portuguese. In 

 HUpaniola, or St. Domingo, there were, as early as 1518, twenty-eight 

 sugar-works, established by the Spaniards. Peter Martyr, who gives 

 this information, remarks on the extraordinary growth of the cane in 

 that island ; which, for a long period, afforded the principal supply of 

 sugar to Europe. Antwerp, about 1560, received sugar from Spain, 

 which had it from the Canaries ; and also from Portugal, the latter 

 country deriving it from S. Thomd and other islands on the African 

 coast, and from Madeira. Sugar was also an article of import from 

 Barbery. 



Whatever may have been the precise period of the commencement 

 of the English sugar-manufacture in Barbadoes, Anderson states that 

 in l'i'27, and for several years later, the Portuguese supplied most 

 parto of Europe with Brazil sugars. About 1650 the British planters 

 in Barbadow appear to have been realising property very rapidly by 

 the raising of sugar ; they having obtained a few years before, valuable 

 information from Brazil respecting the culture and process of extracting 

 sugar from the cane. In l(J7ti the sugar trade of Barbadoes is said to 

 have attained its maximum, being then capable of employing 400 

 vessels, averaging 150 tons burden. 



C'lUtiratitui of tkt Sugar-Cane. The botanical characters of the sugar- 

 cane are given under SACCHARUM, in NAT. HIST. Div., where also the 

 principal specie* are mentioned. The height attained by the canes, 

 tiirir colour, the length of their joints, and many other particulars, 

 vary with different species, with the character of the soil, and with the 

 modes of culture adopted. The stems vary in height from eight feet 

 up t<> twt-nty feet, and are divided by prominent annular joints into 

 hurt lengtlis. Long narrow leaves sprout from each joint ; but as 

 the canes approach maturity, all the leaves from the lower joints fall 

 off. The outer part of the cane is hard and brittle, but the inner 

 consults of a soft pith, which contains the sweet juice ; this juice is 

 elaborated separately in each joint, independently of those above and 

 below it. The canes are usually propagated by slips or cuttings, con- 

 sisting of the top of the cane, with two or three of the upper joints, 

 the leaves being stripped on". These are planted either in holes dug 

 by hand, or in trenches formed by a plough, from eight to twelve 

 inches deep. Three feet between the rows, and two feet between the 

 holes in the rows, are about the minimum distances ; but when the 

 horse-hoe is used to keep the ground clear from weeds, the distances 

 are usually increased to five feet and two and a half feet respectively. 

 Two or more slips are laid longitudinally at the bottom of each hole, 

 ami covered with earth from the banks, to the depth of one <>r two 

 inches. In about a fortnight the sprout* appear a little above the earth. 

 and then a little more earth from the bank is put into the hole ; and 

 AS the plants continue to grow the earth is occasionally tilled in, by a 

 little at a time, until, after four or five months, the holes are entirely 

 filled up. Kn mi August to November ia generally considered the bent 

 time fur planting in the British West Indies; and about March and 

 April i perhaps the most generally approved time for cutting the canes, 

 although that operation is sometimes performed through a great part 

 year. The maturity of the cane is indicated by the skin be- 

 coming dry, smooth, and brittle ; by the cane becoming heavy ; the 

 ray, approaching to brown ; and the juice sweet and glutinous, 

 mes which grow immediately from the planted slips are called 

 cant* ; but it is usual, in the West Indies, to raise several crops 

 cessive years from the same roots; the canes which sprout up 

 M roots, or stoles, being called rattomu. The rattoons are 

 not so vigorous as the original plant-canes ; but they afford better sugar, 

 ;IT,.| that with less trouble in clarifying and concentrating the juice. 

 Home planters have, under favourable circumstances, raised rattoon 

 crops for more than twenty years successively, from the same stoles. 

 The canes should be cut as near the ground as possible, because the 



richest juice is found in the lower joints. One or two of the top joints 

 of the cane are cut off, and the remainder is divided into pieces about 

 i yard long, tied up in bundles, and carried immediately to the mill. 

 The upper branches of the cane are used as food for cattle; the 

 remainder of the waste forms a valuable manure, for which purpose 

 the tra.sk or waste from the mill is admirably suited, though much of it 

 is usually consumed as fuel. 



Preparation of Saw Sugar. The operation of cutting the canes is so 

 adjusted as to keep pace with the action of the mill by which the 

 juice is to be pressed out ; so that the canes may be crushed or ground 

 while quite fresh. In the East Indies mills of very rude and imperfect 

 construction are used ; some of them resembling mortars, formed of the 

 lower part of the trunks of trees, in which the canes are crushed by 

 the rolling motion of a pestle, moved by oxen yoked to a horizontal bar. 

 The expressed juice runs off by a hole bored obliquely from the lower 

 part of the mortar-like cavity, and is conducted by a spout to a vessel 

 placed to receive it. In order to make such a mill effective, it is neces- 

 sary to cut the cane into very small pieces. Other mills are capable of 

 being moved from place to place, so that they may accompany the move- 

 ments of the cane-cutters. One of these consists of two vertical rollers 

 of hard wood, having, near their upper ends, endless screws, or spiral 

 ridges, so fitting into each other that both rollers may revolve when 

 rotatory motion is applied to either. The axis of one of the rollers is 

 prolonged vertically above the framing, and carries a beam to which 

 oxen are yoked to turn the mill. This appears to be the prototype of 

 the vertical mill long used in the West India colonies. Another, still 

 simpler, consisting of two grooved rollers placed horizontally in contact 

 with each) other, and turned by the power of men applied to levers at 

 their ends, appears, in like manner, to be the rude original of the 

 improved horizontal mills introduced of late years. The common 

 vertical cane-mills of the West Indies consist of three rollers, usually 

 of wood, with narrow strips of iron attached to their faces, so as to 

 form, by the spaces left between them, straight grooves extending from 

 end to end of the rollers. The moving-power is applied to the middle 

 roller, and communicated from it to the others by cogged wheels. Of 

 late steam-engines have been adopted with good effect in some of the 

 sugar-works in the West Indies. In using the mill, a negro applies 

 the canes in a regular layer or sheet to the interval between the first 

 and second rollers, which seize and compress the canes violently as they 

 pass between them. The ends of the canes are then turned, either by 

 another negro on the opposite side to the feeder, or by a framework of 

 wood called a dumb returner, so that they may pass back agaiu between 

 the second and third rollers. As these are placed nearer together thau 

 the first and second, they compress the canes still more, so that on 

 leaving them they are reduced to the form of dry splinters, which are 

 called cane-tras/t. Channels are added to receive the liquor expressed 

 from the canes, and to conduct it to the vessels in which it is to 

 undergo the succeeding operations. 



The construction of this mill is very defective. A better form is 

 that of placing the rollers in a horizontal position, and feeding the mill 

 by sliding the canes gradually from an inclined board. The rollers, 

 made very accurately of cast-iron, and fluted or grooved on the surface, 

 are not placed in the same plane>but are arranged in a triangular form, 

 the periphery of the upper roller being very nearly in contact with the 

 two lower rollers, which are also very near together. The two lower 

 rollers, which are called respectively the feeding and delivering rollers, 

 have small flanges at their ends, between which the top roller is placed, 

 so that the pressed canes may not be able to escape from the rollers 

 and clog the machinery. The feed-board is an inclined plane, com- 

 monly of cast-iron, the edge of which is nearly in contact with the 

 feeding roller. The delivering board, which receives and conducts 

 away the trash of the cane, is also of cast-iron, sloping downwards from 

 the delivering roller. In some cases the liquor is raised from the 

 gutter of the mill-bed by pumps connected with and worked by the 

 machinery of the mill. Where circumstances render such an arrange- 

 ment practicable, labour may be saved by placing the crushing-mill on 

 a high level, so that the liquor may run from it to the vessels in which 

 it is to be purified, by inclined gutters. In Demerara a well-constructed 

 engine and mill will produce about a hundred gallons of liquor per 

 hour for each horse-power. 



Cane-juice, as expressed by the mill, is an opaque, slightly viscid 

 fluid, of a dull gray, olive, or olive-green colour, of a sweet balmy taste, 

 and of a specific gravity varying from 1'033 to 1*106. It holds in 

 suspension particles of solid matter from the cane, a considerable 

 portion of which is separable by filtration or repose. The juice is so 

 exceedingly fermentable, that in the climate of the West Indies it 

 would often run into the acetous fermentation in twenty minutes after- 

 leaving the mill, if the process of clarifying were not immediately 

 commenced. 



We have next to treat of the extraction of the sugar from the juice. 

 As practised in the East Indies, the liquor, after being strained so as 

 to separate the coarser feculencies, is boiled down in open boilers into 

 a thick inspissated juice; the scum which rises during the operation 

 being removed. When it is sufficiently evaporated, it is removed into 

 earthen pots to cool, and in these it becomes a dark-coloured, soft, 

 viscid mass, called goor, or ja;/yery. Much of the molasses or un- 

 crystallisable part of the juice is then separated, by putting the goor 

 into a coarse cloth and subjecting it to pressure. The sugar is further 



